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Larry Magid: Amazon Introduces Upgraded Kindle Paperwhite

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) — Amazon is upgrading its Kindle Paperwhite e-book reader and to steal a line from some of those old laundry detergent commercials, ‘it’s a brighter white’.

The screen is brighter, it’s faster and it has a better dictionary, which was an improvement over the original Kindle, which had more of a dull screen. The feature makes it more paper-like, so it’s more like reading a real book.

But why would anyone want a Kindle over a tablet? That’s a good question. The Kindle does have its advantages in this scenario. You can read this Kindle in very bright sunlight and it looks like a real book. It’s like black ink on white paper (or in actuality, the white screen) whereas a tablet will wash out in sunlight and looks more like a computer screen.

Amazon Upgrades Kindle Paperwhite

However, I do like the idea that a tablet is backlight for when I’m reading in bed.
The Kindle Paperwhite does have a light, but it’s not the same as the backlight of a tablet. If I were on the beach, I would prefer the Kindle.

At $119 the Paperwhite is certainly cheaper than most tablets, but that’s not a huge factor since most tablets are coming down in price. Plus there’s the idea that if you bought a book on Amazon, I suppose at any time in the past, you can get the Kindle edition for free or purchase it anywhere from 99 cents to $2.99. This allows you to get the digital version of something you previously bought on paper.

I don’t recall the music industry ever giving me a break on anything I’ve ever bought when I was buying the same copies of albums on vinyl, tape, CD and then digitally in MP3 format.

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